May 16, 2023 - According to the national employment office data, there has been a massive influx of foreign workers in Croatia, mainly from India, Nepal, and the Philippines.

As Poslovni / Večernji write, from the beginning of 2021 until May of this year, the Međimurje Police Department issued around 8,400 residence and work permits to foreign nationals.

Their number has been growing exponentially from year to year, so in 2021, 2,721 permits were issued, 4,195 were issued in 2022, and in the first four months of this year, 1,546 have already been issued. Looking at the total number of employees, Međimurje, which employs about 42,500 people, is probably the record holder in Croatia regarding the share of foreign workers, who now make up about five percent of the total population of this northernmost Croatian county.

If this pace continues, in five to ten years, a fifth of the inhabitants of Međimurje will be foreign citizens. The county, which faced massive emigration for temporary work abroad in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, is today a destination for foreign workers from Nepal, the Philippines, and India... They choose Međimurje because of good working conditions and vacancies employers usually cannot fill with domestic workers.

"The numbers have been growing rapidly. We have had a sudden increase. Local workers go abroad because they think it's better there, but in my opinion, and I know the situation in the world, that's not the case. But even though wages are slowly rising, soon there will be no employer who will not have to resort to hiring foreign workers", says entrepreneur Ivan Senčar, vice president of the economic and social council of Međimurje County.

According to the data from the Čakovec regional office of the Croatian Employment Service, the ten most sought-after occupations in 2022 and the first four months of 2023 have been locksmiths (280), waiters (214), cashiers(160), numerically controlled machine operators (159), welders (153), tailors (144), shoemakers (142), carpenters (140), truck drivers (119) and cooks (114). Mostly, therefore, these are vocational deficit occupations for which Croatia lacks an available labor force.

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May 8, 2023 - The situation in the Croatian job market seems to be quite dynamic. Croats are changing jobs more than ever before, and they intend to continue the practice of quitting. This was confirmed by research conducted last year by the Department of Work Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in cooperation with Hendal and a separate survey by the MojPosao portal.

As Poslovni writes, according to research by the Department of Work Psychology, a fifth of Croats were looking for a new job at the time of the survey, and a quarter (27%) intended to do so in the next year.

Research results by the MojPosao portal were a lot more drastic and show that in the last three years, almost half (45%) of employees have quit their jobs, and nearly every other employee plans to do so within a year.

Salary as the main reason for quitting

Zvonimir Galić, a professor from the Department of Work Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy, explains that due to the research methodology, the figures of the MojPosao portal are probably overestimated, but they confirm a dynamic trend that has never existed in the domestic labour market. And the answer to why people change jobs is actually very simple. "Because they can," says Galić.

"For the first time, we have a situation of a huge lack of workers in all segments, and employers have to fight for them. At the same time, our salaries are generally low and have further decreased due to inflation, so people are looking for work where they can get a better salary," explains the professor.

It is precisely this - salary - that is the number one reason why people will decide to change jobs. But it is not the only one. Research by the MojPosao portal thus shows that poor working conditions are high on the list of reasons people would start looking for a new job.

After salary (49%), workers also mention bad interpersonal relations (45%), lack of professional advancement opportunities (42%), undervaluation by the employer (42%) and poor working conditions that affect health (41%). It turns out that despite the chronic lack of workers, domestic employers still do not understand the value of workers.

Investing in people

"Management of human resources has progressed a lot in recent years, but it is still weak. Many employers still do not understand that they must deal with people better. It is as if they remain blind to what is happening in the labour market. First, therefore, they must raise wages. But that will not be enough. People want a working environment in which they can grow and progress", says the Department of Work Psychology professor. Also, Galić believes that the trend of resigning or changing jobs will continue for two reasons.

"Demographic trends are such that more people are retiring than entering the labour market. The labour market is, therefore, structurally changing. Another reason is the continuing emigration," Galić states, adding that such trends are not bad.

"I think that's good. We had a sluggish labour market for years, and changing jobs was most often related to getting, not resigning. Now that we have a reversed situation, the consequences will be better for the workers, which is an increase in wages and greater investment in employees and their skills," the professor points out.

Regarding occupations, his research shows that the most dynamic is in the ICT and trade, transport and tourism sectors. The IT sector is characterised by a lack of specialists and the best working conditions, as IT employees will earn 1,587 euros net per month on average, data from the CBS show.

Therefore, it should not be surprising that employees in this sector easily opt for better opportunities, which are not difficult to get. On the other hand, the trade, transport and tourism sectors are characterised by low wages and worse working conditions, so it should not be surprising that people quit and look for a better job. They will, on average, earn between 878 and 1025 euros per month.

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February 2, 2023 - Employers from the hospitality and tourism industry have started looking for employees to support the tourist season and work in Croatia for the summer of 2023.

As Poslovni writes, among the employers who represent businesses and are looking for employees are almost all the largest hotel companies, several marinas, agencies, associations, and others.

After Osijek and Bjelovar, Days of Work in Tourism began in Zagreb, taking place in the Congress Center at the Zagreb Fairgrounds.

Among the employers who represent businesses and are looking for employees are almost all the largest hotel companies, several marinas, agencies, associations, and others. There are around 60 exhibitors, and the most sought-after professions include waiters, cooks, maids, cleaners, animators, and dancers.

This year, about 10,000 people want to work in Croatia during the summer season, reveals Ante Lončar, director of the Croatian Employment Service (CES). He adds that estimates of the lack of workers in tourism are around this number, and currently, around 1,600 jobs in tourism are advertised on the CES website.

Goran Vlačić, representative of Valamar Riviera, said they are looking for about a thousand workers for various jobs in all of Valamar's destinations from Istria to Dubrovnik. "Since we expect a better season than last year, it is possible that we will need more of them, but we don't know exactly how many just yet," said Vlačić.

There is also a shortage of workers in the capital city. Zlatko Puntijar, vice-president of the Zagreb Hospitality Association, complained that Zagreb currently lacks about five thousand workers in tourism and hospitality.

And while employers point out that Days of Work in Tourism is an excellent place to find workers, workers complain about the offer. "The same jobs are always offered, most of them in the auxiliary ranks, and even lower-paid ones, while skippers, divers, and similar jobs related to the nautical field are rarely or never sought after," reports Hina.

Last year, there were about 46,000 requests from employers for employment in tourism, but it is still difficult to estimate how it will be in 2023, said the director of the CES, an institution that, along with the ministries of tourism and sports and labor, is the organizer of the event.

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January 5, 2023 - The OVI (Online Vacancy Index) for 2022 showed that the demand for workers in Croatia compared to 2021 increased by as much as 26 percent, while compared to the pre-crisis 2019, the total number of online advertisements was higher by 32.3 percent, which indicates that demand on the Croatian labour market is at historically highest levels, as announced by the Zagreb Institute of Economics (EIZ).

As Vecernji reports, it was pointed out in the announcement on the website of the Zagreb Institute of Economics, as in previous years, the most significant contribution to the annual growth in demand was made by ads seeking workers with lower qualifications and those with secondary education, while the need for employees with higher education contributed with only 2.4 percentage points increase in the total number of ads, which amounted to 12.1 percent.

Salespeople, waiters, cooks, storekeepers, and bookkeepers were among the five most sought-after occupations. At the same time, the most significant contribution to the overall annual growth in labour demand was recorded by advertisements seeking salespeople, storekeepers, accountants, waiters, hoteliers/caterers, and clerks, while among the very rare negative contributions were programmers, construction workers, carpenters, and bricklayers.

In 2022, there was also a more significant increase in the number of fixed-term contracts compared to open-ended contracts, which led to the fact that the share of fixed-term contracts in one year remained almost unchanged, from 46.2 to 46.1 percent of all ads, but the number of advertisements with open-ended contracts saw a decrease in share to 43.7 percent of total ads compared to 44 percent in 2021, the EIZ analysts noted.

OVI - Online Vacancy Index is a monthly index of online job vacancies developed at the Economic Institute in cooperation with the MojPosao portal, and its purpose is to provide timely information on the current state of demand for work. This index is created by simply counting the number of unique new ads whose application deadlines end in the month for which the index is calculated. Considering that ads published through only one portal are taken, the number of ads is expressed as an index (base year is 2015).

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